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Customize Universal Google Analytics (UA) widgets

Learn how to adjust presentation options and filter your Universal GA data to create easy-to-understand visualizations.

Updated over a year ago

This guide walks you through the various options when customizing Universal Google Analytics widgets.

Important: Google will sunset Universal Analytics (UA) on 1st July 2023 and replace it with Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

You must migrate your Universal Analytics property settings to Google Analytics 4 to avoid losing data.

If you’re using the most recent version of Google Analytics, check out our Google Analytics 4 article.

View

View lets you pick the Google Analytics Account, Property and View you want to return data for.

If your plan allows, you can connect to multiple Google Analytics accounts. Click Add connection when selecting your view.

Metric

The metric picker allows you to select any Universal Google Analytics metrics Geckoboard supports.

Line charts, Column charts and Tables allow plotting a second metric on the same widget. To do this, click Add second metric.

Visualization picker

The visualization picker allows you to choose between plotting your data as:

  • Number

  • Line chart

  • Column chart

  • Bar chart

  • Leaderboard

  • Table

The options available depend on how you've configured your widget. See our guide to choosing the right visualization for your data.

Grouping

If you want to group by a certain dimension you need to select a visualization that supports grouping:

  • Column chart (under Horizontal Axis)

  • Bar chart (Labels)

  • Leaderboard (Labels)

  • Table (Group by)

For example, you could try the Leaderboard visualization configured to show Conversions by Medium or Sessions by Page.

Leaderboard widget showing the number of conversions per medium for the past 7 days

Split by

If you're creating a Line or Column chart and haven't chosen additional metrics to compare, you can Split by a chosen dimension. It's also possible to split your data by custom events created in Google Analytics.

For example, you could try splitting Pageviews by Device with the Horizontal Axis set to Time, to see the devices used to view your site per day.

Line chart showing the total site views for past 7 days split by device cateogory

Time

The time picker allows you to select timeframe for your data. You can also create a Custom period from the bottom of the select menu.

Compare to previous period

If you're creating a Number or Line chart, you can compare to a previous period.

For example, you could try comparing Today to the Same day last week.

Comparing today's data to the same day last week

Min/Max values

The Gauge visualization supports setting minimum and maximum values. If left blank, these values are automatically calculated.

Filter results

Filters allow you to dial in to the exact value you care about. Filter options available include:

  • Is: show only those values that the data is

  • Is not: show only those values that the data is not

For example, you could show Sessions where active Campaign is X, or Unique Pageviews where Page path contains /product/.

Add a filter for your Google Ads metric

Set a goal

On the Number, Line, Column and Bar charts visualizations it's possible to show your progress towards a chosen target by setting a goal.

Setting a Starting from value on Number visualizations enables you to set more meaningful goals. For example, you could track your goal to increase Session with event for this month from 50k to 55k.

Number widget showing goal progress towards 55K monthly engaged sessions

Formatting

The Formatting menu allows you to overrule the automatically set number of decimal places used, or add additional information about the values on your widget. For more information, see our guide to using the data formatting options.

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